Mini Seymour is going it alone at Primary School. As her three older siblings headed off to The Big School recently, she wailed after them. She wanted to go, too.
She herself returned to school on Monday. She was ready to go back and keen to see her friends, but school, quite frankly, isn’t her bag.
Mini Seymour is in Year Five now. She’s growing up. Expectations are high, and school, let me tell you, is tough.
I know, because I go too. In a supervisory capacity, of course.
Primary pupils work hard! They learn and they study and they sit and they work.They have fun, too, but mainly, they really, really work. Yesterday in class, we learned about Greece, and we studied maps. It was a productive session, but personally, I came away with a startling realisation.
Mini Seymour has travelled nowhere. Literally nowhere.
“If you’ve been to any of these countries in Europe, colour them in!” Teacher enthuses.
Mini Seymour looks at me.
I rack my brains. Surely she’s been somewhere..? Portugal? Spain? France, maybe? She must have been to France at least. Everyone’s been to France.
No. No she hasn’t. Not at all. Not a even saucisson of a visit. Rien.
Oh dear.
Poor Mini Seymour has not travelled anywhere at all!
Her siblings have fared better – slightly. Some of them have been to France. Oh, and Number One and I drove into Wales briefly last June, but…
I must rectify this. Boy Seymour is keen to go to Amsterdam and Paris. We vowed we’d go when Corona virus allowed.He brings it up frequently, and wants to go NOW. I tell him that there is still the small problem of residual COVID, and that we will wait until there is less risk of pandemic-related costs and cancellations. I tell him also that my passport was nicked in Tesco, and hence we can’t go anywhere until that’s replaced.
So… I do feel like I have let the children down. They’ve yet to go far afield and experience the wonders that the world has to offer. Atolls and mountains, coves and peaks, cities, temples, blossom trees and statues. Art galleries, villages and jungles. Endless wonders to discover. More than is possible to visit in one lifetime.
They have never suffered the effects of jet lag, nor the warm, oppressive fug of a hot country’s welcome as they step off a plane. They haven’t stood in front of an immigration lady whilst she surveys their passports and sizes them up, before deciding whether to allow the into a country or not, just because she can. They haven’t cried in the toilets at Minneapolis Airport because McDonalds shortchanged them, and they haven’t had to sleep on seats at airports to get on a scarily small plane to Vancouver. On their own.
OK, the wide world and I have not had many encounters, and those that we did have came late. And so, as a parent, I’ve not prioritised foreign travel. In fact I’ve avoided it. The very idea of taking my babies on planes leaves me cold. Quite frankly, I’m not comfortable with great metal leviathans whizzing along in the sky.
My kids have not gone without holidays, oh no! They have the kind of holidays most children can only dream of. But these holidays have been in this country, by the sea, in caravans with friends and portable toilets. It’s not everybody’s cup of tea.
Therefore, as a reaction to their upbringing, my kids may yet grow up to be intrepid explorers. Number One is on her way to it, as she’s now learning to drive! Crikey yes, she is now old enough to be learning to command a vehicle. It is incredibly scary.
So I am sorry, kids, if you feel you’ve missed out. But look at it this way: through my geographical apathy, I have left you with a whole world discover in your own time, when you’re mature enough to appreciate it. How marvellous!
And guess what? Mummy’s coming, too! Lucky you!
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